The Fifth Gospel(86)

            And then.

            My God. Those kids, how they loved him. They burst from on high like water from a broken dam. An army couldn’t have stopped them. While I sat there, hogtied in the first row, wave after wave of them came into the pit, surrounding Simon’s body, not letting the Russian take another step. What the men in that pit would’ve done with my brother—left him out on the street, carted him to the next rione to keep police off the scent—I never knew, because those kids swarmed Simon like the whole future of their race depended on it. They carried him on their knobby backs through the crowd and out the door. I watched them take a collection right there, hands in pockets, to find cab fare to the hospital. Half of them looking like they hadn’t eaten in a week, pulling lint off their last coins.

            When I finally caught up to them, Gianni was explaining who we were, how we would take Simon home, where we had doctors. And they stared at us like we had come down in a chariot of fire. Because they had heard that one word, that one magical word, that parted seas and brought dead men back to life.

            Vatican.

            “Save him,” one said to me. “Don’t let him die.”

            Another said: “Take him to Il Papa.”

            Il Papa: John Paul.

            The last thing I ever saw of that place, before the taxi pulled away into the night, was those kids huddled together, watching Simon leave. Watching my brother vanish from their streets. And praying while they watched.



* * *



            IT’S A GOOD CHRISTIAN thing my brother does now, I think to myself, as I sit alone at the table where he refused to mount a defense. He believes in his heart that he does this for the good of someone else. I don’t know who. I don’t know why.

            But I know I have to stop him.





CHAPTER 16





I CHECK ON PETER before I leave. He was watching cartoons, but the TV is now off. The open toiletry bag on the dresser, speckled with water drops, tells me he brushed his teeth. He has even plugged in the nightlight. I kiss his forehead and move his sleeping body away from the edge of the bed, wondering if he will grow up to be as inhumanly self-reliant as his uncle. Wondering if he will someday break my heart, too.

            On a sheet of Lucio’s stationery by the main telephone, I write:

            Diego—

            Running an errand for Mignatto. Be back in an hour or two. Please call my mobile if Peter wakes up.

            —Alex

            Then I call Leo and ask him to join me on a walk to Sister Helena’s.



* * *



            THE CONVENT IS UP the flanks of Vatican Hill, a dead zone at night. Below us, in Rome, the world is powdered with electric light, but here in the gardens the darkness is so thick it seems liquid. Leo and I navigate by memory.

            He doesn’t ask why we’re here. He doesn’t say a thing. When the silence begins to feel heavy, I decide to tell him.

            “They’re charging Simon with the murder. They think he killed Ugo Nogara.”

            Leo stops. I can’t see his expression in the dark.

            “What?” he says. “What the hell did Simon do?”

            “I don’t even know. He’s refusing to defend himself.”

            “What do you mean, refusing?”

            There is no possible answer. “It’s just . . . Simon.”

            “He’ll spend the rest of his life in a cell at Rebibbia.”

            “No. You’ve got to keep this secret, but they’re trying him in a Church court.”